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Tag: Search

macOS Services: Quick Access to Searching with HoudahSpot

The Services feature in macOS allows you to quickly perform actions – no matter what application you’re working in. HoudahSpot provides the following Services to start new searches from right where you currently are:

  • Search in HoudahSpot
  • Search Folders in HoudahSpot
  • New HoudahSpot Search

Services are available system-wide. Just choose Services from any application’s main menu or from the context menu. Assigning a keyboard shortcut to a Service makes access even faster.

Continue reading macOS Services: Quick Access to Searching with HoudahSpot

Find MacOS Files by Extension

The default search form in HoudahSpot lets you to search for files by name, text content and content kind.

Default HoudahSpot search
A fresh HoudahSpot search window

When you know the type of the file you are looking for, you may want to search by file extension.

Let’s say, you want to search for .png files. Here is how:

  1. Click the pop-up menu that is currently set to “Content Kind” and select “File Extension”
  2. Type “png” in the form field on the same row
Search for .png files

Do you frequently search by file extension? Wouldn’t it be convenient if the “File Extension” search was available by default?
Continue reading Find MacOS Files by Extension

Search for Top Level Files. Exclude Subfolders

HoudahSpot searches always go into subfolders. For example, when you search in your home folder, you can find letters saved to your Documents folder.

When you don’t want files from a subfolder to clutter search results, excluding the subfolder is easy: just drag the folder from the breadcrumb path at the bottom of the HoudahSpot window to the Locations/Exclude list.

You can repeat the procedure to exclude more folders. But if you want to see only results from the top level folder, it is easier to use the path filter to simply hide results from nested folders.

Continue reading Search for Top Level Files. Exclude Subfolders

Quick Tip: Return Focus to the HoudahSpot Search Field

After you start a search, HoudahSpot moves the keyboard focus to the search results. You can then navigate results using the arrow keys. Press return to open the selected files.

When the search brings up too many results, you will want to refine it. One way to do so is to add to the search field at the top of the HoudahSpot window.

You may now be tempted to reach for the mouse to click the search field. Don’t.

Continue reading Quick Tip: Return Focus to the HoudahSpot Search Field

How to Access Hidden Folders

In macOS, it’s possible to hide folders. The user Library folder, for example, is hidden by default. Hidden folders are invisible to the Finder and don’t show up in open/save dialog boxes.

What can you do if you need to access a hidden folder, e.g. when searching for a specific file within? Continue reading How to Access Hidden Folders

Save HoudahSpot Searches as Finder Smart Folders

In Mac OS X’s Finder, you can save searches as “Smart Folders”. These give you quick access to all your files that meet certain criteria. For example, all Microsoft Word files modified this month. All JPG photos taken with a specific camera. Or all e-mails you’ve received from certain senders within the last seven days.

Because Mac OS X Smart Folders are actually saved searches, they differ from regular folders: they don’t actually hold anything – they only list files stored elsewhere. The content of Smart Folder is not static but dynamic. It is updated continuously as new files come to meet the smart folder’s search criteria. This means that its content changes every time files on your Mac are added, changed, or removed.

With HoudahSpot (4.1 or later), you can easily set up a search and export it as a Finder Smart Folder.

Continue reading Save HoudahSpot Searches as Finder Smart Folders

Creating Snippets in HoudahSpot

In HoudahSpot, snippets let you to set aside frequently used combinations of search criteria. HoudahSpot comes with a few pre-installed snippets, but you can also define your own.

Snippets can hold a single search criterion or a group of criteria that serve a certain purpose. The pre-installed snippet “Date Created range”, for example, holds two criteria in an “All of the following are true” group: “Content created before” and “Content created after”. Use this snippet whenever you want to find files created in a range of dates.

HoudahSpot's Sidebar & Refine Pane
Drag the snippet from the sidebar to refine pane (example: Date range snippet)

Continue reading Creating Snippets in HoudahSpot

Stash Extra Criteria in Search Templates

In HoudahSpot, you can temporarily disable individual search criteria. This is particularly useful in combination with templates: have different criteria preconfigured, enable them as needed. Continue reading Stash Extra Criteria in Search Templates

Find Files from a List of Names

Sometimes, you get a list of file names and need to find the actual files. You may be a photographer who sent out a contact sheet for photo proofing and got back an email listing the images to be printed. Or you may have sent friends messages with tiny photos and got a reply asking for larger copies of images 7359, 7365 and 7366.

HoudahSpot can help you work through such notes and collect the requested files. Continue reading Find Files from a List of Names

HoudahSpot: 10 Years of Successful Searching on the Mac

10 years ago, we released the very first version of what came to be one of the most popular search tools on the Mac: HoudahSpot.
Continue reading HoudahSpot: 10 Years of Successful Searching on the Mac